Health Care Survey Reveals Interesting Stats

How employees view health care is examined in a new survey carried out by the National Business Group and Hewitt. These insights are significant for employers to be aware of as they examine their existing and upcoming health care approaches. Help for prescription drugs is high on the list. 

Workers know how to get healthy, however a lot are not taking action. Most (84%) think making good decisions in every day life leads to excellent overall health, and approximately three-quarters (72%) think good health is a outcome of getting regular preventive care. Only half of the workers think they do a great or good job of eating healthy, while less than half (46%) reported doing a great or good job of working out on a regular basis. To assist with the high cost of prescription medicine, most workers surveyed ranked prescription program assistance very high. 

Participation in health programs is low, but satisfaction is high. Workers and dependents say they might know what actions they need to take to get and stay healthy, but participation in many employer-provided health improvement programs is not as high as employers would like. The most popular programs include biometric screenings (61%), followed by online health information tools (53%) and health risk questionnaires (41%). The least popular programs were stress management programs and employee assistance programs. For employees that have dependent coverage, a prescription program was the number one satisfying benefit.

Financial motivation is a strong factor in participation but non financial, internal motivators can be just as valuable. Frequently, businesses assume that providing monetary incentives for participating in programs will increase participation. Nearly half would complete a health-risk questionnaire (HRQ) without any incentive because it is "the right thing to do". About 30% of the participants would complete a survey if there was a penalty for not doing so and an additional 30% would do it if there was a monetary incentive involved. In addition, 44% of the employees surveyed said they would be willing to participate in a wellness program provided by their employer because "it's the right thing to do".

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Originally posted 2010-08-19 00:59:25. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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